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Gallery living

Client

Stockland

Architects

L+S & DJRD

Year

2010s

Program

Residential

Status

Competition

Scale

Large

150 APARTMENTS IN ROSEBERY:

This residential project is located in Rosebery, one of the inner-city suburbs of Sydney that had experienced a rapid population growth in the last 10 years. This new population is from very diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

In the design of these 150 apartments, the focus is to favour interaction between inhabitants by providing a series of spaces of different levels of privacy:

A public lane, open 24h /day, crosses the site.

A large communal garden used by the residents. The garden is reminiscent of the indigenous wetland that occupied this area. It is planted with paperbarks, she oaks, long grasses. Several ponds, with aquatic plants and fish, are scattered around.

Apartments are accessed by a semi-private external gallery. The gallery is designed as an extension of the apartment. It can be furnished and enhanced with pot-plants and decoration. The gallery opens largely to the kitchen, allowing dwellers to gather or eat outside easily. It triggers possible interaction between neighbours. Privacy is maintained by limiting views inside the apartment. Views in the kitchen can be totally obscured by screening.

Another asset of the gallery is to allow apartments to be fully double-sided. Dwellings will benefit of a whole range of amenities: 87% have more than 2h of solar access on the shortest day of the year, 89% have windows in their bathrooms, 83% are fully crossed ventilated, 17% have a private roof terrace.

The facades are composed of robust and low maintenance materials. Prefabricated T shapes concrete panels create ample arches establishing a dialogue with Mentmore House, a heritage listed sandstone building adjacent to the site. A curtain helps the sun control on the balconies and soften the rawness of the concrete panels.

Despite all these advantages, the building boosts an efficiency of 90% (GFA/NSA). The yield of 143 apartments in the recommended masterplan is exceeded in a very tight height limit and floor space ratio (FSR).